UNIVERSITÉ DES MASCAREIGNES

FACULTY OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND

ENGINEERING

Department of Engineering and Environment

Title of module: Advanced Structural Design (ASD)

Assignment title: Calculation of the centroid of an aluminium section.

Name: SEEDOYAL Nirvana Latchmee

Class: GC 4 BEng

Submit to: Mr. A. MUDHAWO

Date: 23 APRIL 2021

I
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Above all, I would like to thank God for everything.

As the completion of this assignment gave me much pleasure, I would like to show my

gratitude towards Mr. A. MUDHAWO, our lecturer, for giving us the opportunity to work on this

project.

In addition, a thank you to my parents and my brother who always supported me throughout my

endeavours.

I would also like to expand my gratitude to all those who have directly and indirectly guided me in

writing this assignment.

a
TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ............................................................................................................................. a

TABLE OF CONTENTS............................................................................................................................... b

TABLE OF FIGURES .............................................................................................................................. b

AIM OF REPORT....................................................................................................................................... 1

INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................... 1

How do we measure centre of gravity in AutoCAD 2D? ..................................................................... 1

PROCEDURES........................................................................................................................................... 2

CALCULATIONS & RESULTS ..................................................................................................................... 9

CONCLUSION......................................................................................................................................... 10

REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................................. i

ANNEX ..................................................................................................................................................... ii

TABLE OF FIGURES

Figure 1: The aluminium piece ................................................................................................................ 2

Figure 2: The scanned picture ................................................................................................................. 2
Figure 3 ................................................................................................................................................... 3
Figure 4 ................................................................................................................................................... 3
Figure 5 ................................................................................................................................................... 4
Figure 6 ................................................................................................................................................... 4
Figure 7 ................................................................................................................................................... 5
Figure 8 ................................................................................................................................................... 5
Figure 9 ................................................................................................................................................... 6
Figure 10 ................................................................................................................................................. 7
Figure 11: Completed drawing of the section ........................................................................................ 8
Figure 12 ................................................................................................................................................. 9

b
AIM OF REPORT
Practice and know how to locate and calculate the centroid of a piece of metal, here, in this case, a
section piece of aluminium with the help of the software AutoCAD.

INTRODUCTION
An object’s centre of gravity is its balancing point, if an object was supported at this point then it would
be in equilibrium and not move. Centre of gravity is the point from which all of an object’s mass acts
for the purposes of mechanical calculations.

Centre of gravity is widely used in engineering. It is particularly useful for designing bridges, buildings
etc and also in predicting how an object will move when acted on by a force, whether that is gravity
or another force.

How do we measure centre of gravity in AutoCAD 2D?

In the AutoCAD 2D we can measure it in the following ways:

• In the case of a regular shape, we can find it by locating its centre

• In the case of a composite shape, we can find it either by locating its centres or by using
AutoCAD commands.
• In the case of an irregular shape, we can find it using AutoCAD commands

We mainly use the following commands in addition to the other AutoCAD commands:

• Pdmode
• UCS
• Point
• ‘Cal
• Region
• Massprop etc.

Geometrically finding the centre of gravity of complex or irregular shapes is either extremely time-
consuming or not practically possible. Using AutoCAD, we can find centre of gravity of irregular shapes
very quickly, using following steps:

• Convert the area into a region

• Set the UCS at the lower left corner point of the object
• Find the Centroid (CG) through the ‘Massprop’ command which gives the dimensions of the
CG from the lower left corner of the object.

1
PROCEDURES
• STEP 1

I scanned the piece of aluminium on a scanner to get its exact dimensions.

Figure 1: The aluminium piece

Here is the scanned picture of the aluminium piece.

Figure 2: The scanned picture

2
• STEP 2

I dragged the picture in AutoCAD.

Figure 3

• STEP 3

With the help of AutoCAD, I found the dimensions of the picture. It was found to be 207.264008 mm
by 294.894012 mm, which is the size of an A4 paper.

Figure 4

3
• STEP 4

Then, I drew a line and aligned the picture with that line to scale it so that I can easily draw the
aluminium section.

Figure 5

• STEP 5

I verified the picture’s dimensions and they were correct.

Figure 6

4
• STEP 6

I created a new layer of green colour to draw.

Figure 7

• STEP 7

I started with the base.

Figure 8

5
• STEP 8

This is the nearly completed drawing of the section.

Figure 9

6
• STEP 9

These are the completed drawings of the aluminium section on AutoCAD.

Figure 10

7
• STEP 10

Then, I extracted the data of the section.

---------------- REGIONS ----------------

Area: 1572.8156
Perimeter: 167.1776
Bounding box: X: -5554181.6554 -- -5554144.8554
Y: 1086432867.4015 -- 1086432912.4146
Centroid: X: -5554163.1038
Y: 1086432888.8909
Moments of inertia: X: 1.8565E+21
Y: 4.8519E+16
Product of inertia: XY: 9.4907E+18
Radii of gyration: X: 1086432888.8909
Y: 5554163.1038
Principal moments and X-Y directions about centroid:
I: 262339.3592 along [0.9995 -0.0318]
J: 68916.6408 along [0.0318 0.9995]

• STEP 11

Below is the completed drawing of the aluminium section.

Figure 11: Completed drawing of the section

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CALCULATIONS & RESULTS

Find centroid of aluminium frame.

Figure 12

Given: Aluminium alloy, 𝐸 = 70 × 103 𝑀𝑃𝑎 (𝑁/𝑚𝑚2 )

Tensile strength = 110 𝑀𝑃𝑎 (𝑁/𝑚𝑚2 )
Found: Moments about centroid, 𝐼 = 262 339.3592
𝐽 = 68 916.6408

1. Bending or stress
𝑴×𝒚
𝜹=
𝑰
𝟎. 𝟓 × 𝟐𝟐
( 𝟐 ) × 𝟔𝟖𝟗𝟏𝟔. 𝟔𝟒𝟎𝟖 × 𝟏𝟎𝟑
𝜹=
𝟐𝟔𝟐𝟑𝟑𝟗. 𝟑𝟓𝟗𝟐
𝜹 = 𝟐𝟔𝟐. 𝟕𝟎𝟎𝟑𝟒𝟕𝟒 𝑷𝒂

𝜹 = 𝟐𝟔𝟐. 𝟕𝟎 𝑷𝒂

2. Deflection of frame

𝟑𝑾𝑳𝟑
∆=
𝟒𝟖𝑬𝑰
𝟑 × (𝟎. 𝟓 × 𝟏𝟎𝟑 ) × 𝟐𝟑
∆=
𝟒𝟖 × (𝟕𝟎 × 𝟏𝟎𝟑 ) × 𝟐𝟔𝟐𝟑𝟑𝟗. 𝟑𝟓𝟗𝟐

∆ = 𝟏. 𝟑𝟔𝟏𝟑𝟕𝟕𝟑𝟑𝟑 × 𝟏𝟎−𝟖

∆ = 𝟏. 𝟑𝟔 × 𝟏𝟎−𝟖 𝒎

9
CONCLUSION

This assignment helped me to understand the software AutoCAD better and how to use it to

find different properties of drawings such as its area, its perimeter, its centroid, its moment

of inertia and the principal moments about the centroid. The rest to be done, were the

calculations. It was interesting and simple to work out this assignment and I am grateful to

our lecturer, Mr. A. Mudhawo, for giving us the opportunity to work this out,

10
REFERENCES

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad/learn-
explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2019/ENU/AutoCAD-Core/files/GUID-50BEF344-C735-45C1-
A0D1-D0F901BAEBB9-htm.html

https://www.thesourcecad.com/centre-of-gravity-
autocad/#:~:text=Convert%20the%20area%20into%20a,left%20corner%20of%20the%20object.

i
ANNEX

ii
iii